As the 2030 deadline draws nearer, there is a clear demand for stocktaking and reflection. First, to review what progress countries have made in developing their education systems in line with the SDG 4 targets. Second, to attempt to explain why some countries have done better than their peers. An analysis of this kind would provide an essential frame to support the global debate on a future international education agenda. By analysing the different trajectories, choices and challenges found in different countries, it would also speak to current conversations about the need for a global agenda to be contextualised to nations’ different experiences and realities. This is the purpose of the next three GEM Report cycles, which will form the Countdown to 2030 series.   

The next three GEM reports will focus on countries that have moved much faster than other countries which started at the same level 15 οr 20 years ago. The GEM Report is centrally placed to lead this conversation having been a trusted voice on monitoring progress towards the international education development targets since 2002.  

The reports will:  

• describe the reasons why some countries have improved their education systems faster than their peers – and why some have stagnated – over a long period of time;  

• extract potential policy lessons by combining evidence from country case studies with systematic policy analysis, assessing what factors might explain progress; and 

• help shape the debate for priorities and targets beyond 2030. 

The three reports in the Countdown to 2030 series will organize the agenda into three broad categories. In particular: 

• In 2026, the report will focus on access and equity, the part of the agenda amenable to long-term analysis, as it is supported by abundant and relatively unambiguous data.   

• In 2027, the report will focus on quality and learning, for which data are scarce and often come with a considerable amount of uncertainty.  

• In 2028, the report will focus on relevance, where progress is least well documented and not even defined. The intention will be to address questions regarding whether education systems adequately prepare learners for the major global challenges, at the intersection of education with other development outcomes. 

Splitting the agenda into these three categories is meant to organize the presentation of the material and not to suggest that, say, access can be examined separately from quality, or quality separately from relevance. Links between the three reports will be built within each edition.  

The 2026 GEM Report will focus on access and equity 

The first report in the series due out in March 2026 will look at five access and equity indicators:  

• Early childhood participation (SDG global indicator 4.2.2);  

• Out-of-school rate (SDG thematic indicator 4.1.4); 

• Completion rate (SDG global indicator 4.1.2); 

• Tertiary education gross enrolment ratio (SDG thematic indicator 4.3.2); and 

• Parity index (SDG global indicator 4.5.1) 

For each of the indicators, 7 countries will be analysed, for a total of 35 countries. These will be selected to provide a representative set of country examples in terms of initial conditions and subsequent experiences. The aim is not to pick the ‘best’ performing countries in the world but a regionally balanced set of countries that reflect a variety of contexts.  

In that sense, the report builds upon the logic of the SDG 4 benchmarking process, which the GEM Report has been leading with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics for the past few years and which emphasizes the need to always put an assessment of progress, or stagnation, in context. 

The analysis of monitoring data will support a policy focus 

Country stories will reveal a wide range of factors that explain rapid progress or regression. Many of these factors are outside the scope of education policy’s sphere of influence. But the report will combine the insights from monitoring and country case studies with two other inputs to draw lessons on the role of policy:  

• Three systematic reviews of research on policies, which have been credited with increasing participation in pre-primary, basic and post-secondary education.   

• An in-depth analysis, in the framework of the PEER website, of country approaches to using education and social protection finance to improve equity in education, building on earlier analysis.  

To summarize, the 2026 GEM Report aims to address the following questions:  

1. Among countries that started from similar levels of education development, which countries have expanded their education systems much faster than others? Have they managed to reduce disparity?  
2. Among countries that have improved fast or stagnated, what are the 2-3 key reasons that help explain the observed trends?  
3. What policies does research identify as having played a key role for improving education participation and reducing disparity in the long term – and how do they relate to factors put forward in country analyses? What is the role of financing policies to promote equity?  
4. What are the implications of the statistical, country case study and policy analyses for the access and equity dimensions of a future education agenda?  

The recommendations will aim to cover a range of issues, including: scope for improvement in approaches to monitoring participation at different education levels; lessons from past progress records on feasible but ambitious targets for an agenda post-2030 and a reflection on the implication for the right to education; mechanisms for setting targets; policy principles that have served countries that have expanded faster; and scope for improvement in approaches to monitoring policies. 

There will be regional editions attached to each of the global Report. The regional editions of the 2026 GEM Report cycle will focus on:  

• Early childhood education participation in the Arab States  

• Gender disparity in secondary completion in the Caribbean  

• Late enrolment and repetition in primary education in Africa, part of the Spotlight series 

International development agendas, including its education pillars, have been viewed with some cynicism, critiscizing the fact that they overpromise and underdeliver. The Countdown to 2030 series aims to strengthen a belief in the value of setting goals. But it will also inform a discussion on how to avoid past pitfalls and ensure that future targets will help countries that are committed to improving their education systems and keen to learn from others.  

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